21 Bangsamoro Transition Commission members named

MILF vice chair for political affairs Ghazali Jaafar. RYAN LEAGOGO/INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO

Even with the stalled peace talks, the government’s plan to forge lasting peace with Moro rebels is moving forward, with President Duterte naming the 21 members of the body that will draft the new enabling law for the Bangsamoro.

Top Moro Islamic Liberation Front leaders Ghadzali Jaafar and Mohagher Iqbal, former Mayor Hussin Amin of Jolo, Sulu, and lawyer Firdausi Abbas are among the 21 members of the new and expanded Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC), the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process said on Friday.

The BTC is the body tasked to craft the new Bangsamoro enabling law as part of the implementation process of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro signed between the Philippine government and the MILF in March 2014.

“This will signal the start of the work to come up with an inclusive Bangsamoro law that will truly reflect and address the clamor for a genuine political autonomy for the Bangsamoro people in Mindanao,” Secretary Jesus Dureza, the presidential adviser on the peace process, said in a statement.

The government has set a deadline for the BTC to submit the draft to Congress by July for deliberations and ratification.

Earlier, Dureza said the old Bangsamoro Basic Law, which failed to be enacted as a law by the previous Congress, would probably be the basic document of the new enabling law. —WITH A REPORT FROM LEILA B. SALAVERRIA